Feeding The Giant

Director, producer, videographer, and editor for a mini-documentary series called Feeding The Giant. The series tells nine stories of restaurant workers across America. The project travelled to Wisconsin, Nevada, Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Utah, Illinois, and Massachusetts, and listened to the people who work in the restaurant industry. Although geographically disparate, each story told of a similar struggle – a struggle to survive on a tipped minimum federal wage that has not been raised in 26 years – a struggle to live in a system of economic oppression in which low wages act as a catalyst for other forms of hardship, such as sexual harassment, lack of paid sick leave, and racial and gender discrimination. And yet each story brought with it an underlying joy in working to bring others together over a shared meal. The people who work in restaurants are passionate and proud about their work, and want to be treated as the working professionals that they are. Feeding The Giant was a selected project on the 2016 Millennial Trains Project, received a grant from Comcast NBCUniversal, and was a Communication Arts Webpick. Chef Samin Nostrat, Netflix host of Salt Fat Acid Heat, tweeted about Feeding The Giant, saying, “Everyone who works in food or eats food in America needs to watch these videos. Thank you.”